Mfilter Rule Syntax

Design Goals:

• Fast processing of incoming messages.
• A simple, clear, syntax so that rules can easily be understood and modified
• Enough power/flexibility
• Incorporate regular expression matching to give real power.
• Not to create a new elaborate language if possible.

How to configure rules:

• Simply create a file called mfilter.rul in the SurgeMail work area (as defined in SurgeMails config)
• Use the test command via the SurgeMail admin interface to check that your filter works as expected
• Please note that "local.rul" should be used for adding scoring for ASPAM not mfilter.rul.

Tracing problems

If you have problems getting mfilter to run you can use these two settings in surgemail.ini, they will provide logging to show exactly what is going on.

g_mfilter_trace "true"
g_mfilter_noisey "true"

then examine 'mail.log' after sending in a test message.

Syntax Of mfilter.rul File

There are 6 valid statements in a rule file:

Assignment
Action
if (Conditional_Expression) [and (Conditional_Expression)...] Action
else
end if
call built_in_function()

Assignment

$variable_name = "quoted string" [+ "quoted string" [+ $variable ...]]
$variable_name = function()

Action

accept "reason" | bounce "reason" | drop "reason" | forward "user@domain" | then | setflag("flagname") | clearflag("flagname")

Conditional Expression (if, else, end if)

Any pre-defined function, e.g. isbinary()
isin("subject","free pictures")
Numeric comparisons, e.g. lines()>100
Simple NOT operator, e.g. if (!isbinary()) reject "Only binaries allowed here mate!"
Calculations are NOT permitted, e.g. lines()+10 would fail

Recipients block for processing individual recipients

A single mail message may have many recipients, and in many cases the actions of your spam filter should vary depending on the recipients (you might, for example, want all messages to your account to get through even if the same message would be blocked if sent to any other user).

The recipient block (recipients...end recipients) is processed once for each recipient of the message.

Inside the 'recipients' block there is a dummy variable defined 'recipient' which is the specific recipient in question.

All the action's (except, bounce, drop) refer to the recipient only, not to the entire message, so when one of those actions that normally terminates message processing is encountered (accept, bounce, drop, etc) instead the action is applied only to that recipient and the recipient block is restarted with the next recipient defined.

(Example of mfilter rule to do processing 'per recipient')

recipients
       if (isin("recipient","manager@this.domain")) accept "Always accept for me        so spammers can talk to me"
       if (isin("recipient","sales@your.domain")) then
       	if (isin("subject","order")) then
       		# Make a Duplicate of sale order
       		call forward_cc("sales_copy@your.domain")
       	end if
       end if
end recipients 

Miscellaneous

Line Continuation

Lines can be continued by ending the line in a '\' character

Quoting Strings

All strings and header names should be within double quotes, sometimes you may get away without doing this, but we don't guarantee this will work in future. e.g. use: exists("Supersedes") not exists(Supersedes); quotes can be escaped in the usual way, e.g. "This \"Word\" has quotes around it"

Assignments

Assignments are processed at compile time, variables DO NOT exist at run time. Do not think of this as a programming language, but rather as a list of rules that are processed with each incoming message. Real run-time variables only exist in the form of the ifflag("xxx") function and the setflag("xxx") action.

For example, the following is NOT VALID, as the assignment is processed before the rules are run. The rejection would always read "big message"

$fred = "small message"
if (lines()>100) then
   $fred = "big message" (this will not work as expected)
end if
reject $fred

Odd stuff

The statement 'do_bounce_fast' should appear at the end of your mfilter.rul file, and it is used by the rexp_fast() rules. rexp_fast acts just like rexp() but it is much faster because it searches the message once for all of the rules in question, each rule must start with two simple non 'regular expression' characters. This enables mfilter to generate a hash table of all the regular expressions it's going to search for and then it can efficiently apply only the ones that appear to match as it runs through the message. Also rexp_fast includes the score to apply if the message matches the rule.

Actions & Commands

Actions

accept"reason" (Terminates processing)
bounce "reason" (Terminates processing)
reject "reason" (same as bounce)
forward "reason" (Terminates processing) (redirect is a synonym for this action)
print "reason" (Prints debugging line to log file mail.log)
setflag("flagname") "reason"
clearflag("flagname") "reason"

Functions that have actions but must be proceeded by the 'call' action as they are really functions and must be on a line of their own (not on the end of an if statement)

call forward_cc("new@email.address)
call replace("header_name","wildcard_match_pattern","replacement_pattern")
call report("manger@email.address","subject of message")

Builtin Functions

call add_header("Header: header information")
allmod()
exists("header")
head_len("header")
isbase64()
isbinary() )
isencodedhtml()
(isencodedtext()
isencodedurl()
isflag("flag-name")
ishtml()
isimage()
isin("header","string-not-case-sensitive")
lines()>3)
match("header","wildcard")
matchall("header","wildcardlist")
matchone("header","wildcardlist")
rexp("header","regular-expression")
size()
call spamdetect(n,"reason")
call spawn("d:/surge/filter.exe $FILE$")

 

New Functions

time_hour() - returns the 'hours' 0-23, useful for rules that apply at different times of day
time_min() - returns the minutes
isimage() - True if message contains an image
isjpg() - True if message contains a jpeg image
ispdf() - True if message contains a pdf file
image_size() - Approx size of image in bytes
nimage() - Approx number of images found in message
islocal() - Message is to a local user not an outgoing message
isloggedin() - Message is from a logged in local user
is_dayofweek("monday,tuesday") - True on those days of the week.

Notes

The "header" parameter can be any normal header, such as "Subject", "From" or "To". However, the are some additional pseudo-headers than can also be used as parameters in any function which takes a "header" parameter:

"head": refers to the entire message header.
"body": refers only to the message body (after any necessary decoding)
"urls": refers to any urls found in the body

Function Descriptions

call add_header("Header: header information")

Used to add a header to a message. eg

if (isin("x-spamdetect","****") then
call add_header("X-MailScanner-SpamCheck: LEVEL=****")
end if 

NOTE: This will cause bounces if used in local.rul or simple.rul, it can only be used in mftiler.rul

Requires Version 3.8 or later.

allmod("header")

exists("header")

head_len("header")

if (head_len("date")>60) bounce "Naughty message"

isbase64()

isbinary()

isencodedhtml()

isencodedtext()

isencodedurl()

isflag("flag-name")

if (size()>100000) setflag("bigitem")
if (isimage()) setflag("bigitem")
if (isflag("bigitem")) reject "It was a big item or had a picture in it"

ishtml()

This is true if the message appears to contain HTML instead of plain text data.

isimage()

isin("header","string-not-case-sensitive")

if (isin("Subject","Free"))
reject "Probably a spammer selling something"

lines()

match("header","wildcard")

match("From","*@netwin.co.nz*")

matchall("header","wildcardlist")

Used for matching a single wild card against a header which contains a list of values, like Newsgroups:, Path: etc..., The match is TRUE only if all entries in the list match, eg:

if (matchall("Newsgroups","news.filters.*")) accept "It is only in the filters list so we will accept it"

if (spawn("d:/path/xfilter.exe $FILE$")) reject "That was spam according to xfilter" 

$sex = "fuck|xxx|sex"
$free = "free(?!dom|bsd|nix|serve)"
$pics = "pi[cx]"
$free_pictures = $free + $pics
$bad_guys = + "|freepictures|jus.?.?\.doi.?.?\.to|great\.site|webbinaries" \
          + "|yad.?.?.?\.ion.?.?\.org|freehidden|joy.?.?\.to.?.?\.al|from.?behind" \
          + "|love(youhon|ergirl|chatting|stofuck)|forever\.yours|\@ju.?.?\.sex|town.\girl|beachbums" \i

# Do some processing which is specific to individual recipients
recipients
        if (isin("recipient","manager@this.domain")) accept "Always accept for me so spammers can talk to me"
        if (isin("recipient","sales@your.domain")) then
                if (isin("subject","order")) then
                        # Make a Duplicate of sale order
                        call forward_cc("sales_copy@your.domain")
                end if
        end if
end recipients

# Check for some known spammers and naughty subjects
if (rexp(subject,$free_pictures)) bounce "No emails about free pictures"
if (rexp(from,$bad_guys)) bounce "No emails from black listed people thanks"

call replace("From","*@*.parts.co.nz","%1@parts.co.nz")

accept "Great, we liked the message"

if (exists("X-Surbl")) reject "Your SPAM is not wanted here."

if (exists("X-Surbl")) drop "SURBL SPAM is not wanted here." 

if (isin("Subject","(No subject header)")) bounce "No Subject header"

if (head_len("Subject")<1) bounce "Emtpy Subject header"

recipients
if (isin("from","fred@localdomain.com")) then
     if (!isin("recipient", "localdomain.com")) bounce "Sorry you can only send to localdomain.com"
end if